Originally Posted by: caponi14... I want to learn stuff like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WOUEIxKxc0

Most of the stuff in that vid is just goofing around with the pentatonic minor boxes. Probably the single hardest aspect of free improvisation is implying and staying in some rhythmic time.

This one thing is the difference between sounding like you are "just practicing scales" and sounding like you are "playing music on the guitar". You have to phrase things so they sound like complete, self-contained coherent musical statements. And not just a string of notes which could start and stop anywhere.

It's the difference between just a bunch of words strung together:

"dog, cat, jump, run, black, quickly, brown, porch, very, skittish, etc."

And a series of words placed together with a purpose, skill and intelligence:

"The black, stealthy dog jumped up on the wooden porch very quickly. It was extremely intent on catching it's prey. The intended victim was a brown, skittish cat which had been sleepily minding it's own business; but now was frantically running for it's life!"

Make sense?

Have you seen these tutorials on using all the pentatonic boxes?

http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=185
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=722

Can you do all that in time?

Have you seen these tutorials on connecting the pentatonic boxes? Because they guy in that vid is doing a whole lot of that type of thing. :)

http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=737
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=843

Finally, as Douglas said, set goals for yourself. Set them in a manageable way. Don't just do this:

1. Here's my goal: Be a competent guitarist that can improvise.

And that's it. This is a great goal. But it is just one huge, "top of the list" lifetime goal. You have to break it down into manageable, realistic steps that will help you get there. Do it like this:

Overall lifetime goal
1. Be a competent guitarist that can improvise.

Yearly goals
1. Map out entire fretboard for major scales.
2. Map out entire fretboard for minor scales.
3. Map out entire fretboard for major chords.
4. Map out entire fretboard for minor chords.

Monthly goals
January: learn to play and hear 3 major scales (C major, G major, D major) in multiple fretboard places.
February: learn to play and use all chords in those scales.
March: learn to play and hear 3 minor scales (A minor, E minor, B minor) in multiple fretboard places.
April: learn to play and use all chords in those scales.
May: learn to play and hear 3 different major scales (A major, E major B major) in multiple fretboard places.

And so on until you get to the nitty, gritty, fine details of what you can everyday to actually work toward those huge goals.

Weekly goals:
Learn, play and memorize the C major scale across the fretboard.

Daily goals:
Mon: Play and memorize C major scale in frets 0-5.
Tues: Learn 3 melodies in C major scale in first five frets. Invent 3 licks using C major scale in first five frets.
Wed: Play and memorize C major scale in frets 5-10.
Thurs: Learn 3 melodies in C major scale in frets 5-10. Invent 3 licks using C major scale in frets 5-10.

And so on.

This is just an example. But do you see how this creates a manageable, systematic heirarchy of goals that are realistic and build from one simple thing into the larger overall goal?

Hope this helps. Best of success!